04/12/2024
A heartfelt story from Miguel Hernandez-Reyes (a former member of ECC and a friend of the late Jo Hadley) dedicated to our beloved JO HADLEY (1964-2024)
Every year at around this time, I repeat the same tired old joke. That obviously my Presidential invite to the Independence Day Ball has got lost in the post, again. So, I’ll be joining my friends on Independence Day, the sixth of December, for the annual march and demonstration against the N***s in Helsinki. But this year is going to be different. I am not ashamed or embarrassed to say; as I write, I’m full of sorrow and grief, with perhaps just a small tear in my eye, and a heavy heart.
My friend, our friend, known to so many, Jo Hadley , is not going to be there at the march this year. We won’t be seeing his smiling face again. He was always there. But now, he’s left us. He got a cancer diagnosis about a year ago. From the beginning, he knew the odds were stacked against him. And, with all the care, time consuming and often painful treatment and support available to him, he endured as long as he could. And in a very Jo way, he didn’t complain at the injustice of it all. He just made his plans and arrangements. And then he got through his bucket list of things to do, whilst he could, before he couldn’t, anymore.
Looking back now at this last year of Jo’s life, I can see and appreciate how brave he was. He was brave in that practical, positive way that those ordinary heroes are, who walk amongst us every day. But we don’t recognise them, until they are gone. He kept his good humour, his kind, welcoming, supportive and gracious demeanour for us all, to the very end.
Looking back, I see now how righteous a man he always was.
I never saw him consumed by the anger, rage or resentment which so many of us suffer from. Only once, have I heard that he “lost it”. And even then, I heard he only expressed some justified and righteous anti-racist anger, in response to some drunken anti-social behaviour on a Helsinki bus. He had principles and ethics. He had soul.
I was privileged enough to talk to him a few times before the end. He spoke openly and honestly with me, about life and death. There was humour, a few jokes, but no melodrama or self-pity. He was, like Jo always was, still full of questions, an instinctive researcher. I told him what I thought I knew, what I’d seen, what I thought I’d learned. And he taught me what it was like, what it meant, to have to experience it, for real. And certainly, Jo was a realist. He didn’t seem to need religion, or the superstitious rituals and spiritual constructs, that help so many of us, like me, face the terrors of life, and death.
So, I hope Jo would approve; me, trying to be totally unsentimental and rational, that when I go out to march against the N***s in Helsinki on Independence Day; I will, as long as I am able to walk on this earth, be marching against the N***s in Finland in respect and memory of Jo.
I remember meeting Jo for the first time some twenty years ago here in Helsinki. I heard from my Finnish friends that there was a group of “gentlemen” dressed in white, in the park down in Viikki, playing this strange game they understood was called “Cricket”.
And there was Jo, with the Empire Cricket Club. That day I found my cultural brethren here in Helsinki, in a strange land, and Jo Hadley was my host. I think it was that same day, that Jo came back to my home, and I found myself in an intense discussion at our kitchen table, about politics in the UK, being an “expat” in Finland, and our shared professional experiences of UK criminal justice policy, the 80’s riots, northern Ireland, racism, fascism and the extreme right, sociological theories, language and culture, etal.
He was so intelligent, articulate, knowledgeable and enthusiastic about so many things.
Not just the Cricket, but security policy, music, art and culture, history and politics. And, as I was to experience myself, he could be very persuasive with his interests.
I knew he was an Essex boy, from Southend no less. For me, an Angel boy from Islington, I had more than enough condescending prejudices and stereotypes about anybody from that north side, at the end of the Thames estuary. I found myself bemused by his, to me, eccentric and passionate interest in the “Who”. His magic tricks and Jo’s Shows, Punch and Judy. But his enthusiasm was contagious. It worked, I found myself actually listening to the Who again, seriously. Something I’d never done, having only dismissively hurled abuse at my school mates in the sixth form back in the seventies, listening to their hippy “Rock” music. But Jo influenced me to relax my cultural boundaries. When it came to the Punch and Judy shows, I first went, more out of politeness, to the Malmi Library to see him perform. I discovered that he actually knew about the legendary Jo Grimaldi, who was buried at the end of the street in Barnsbury where I grew up. Somehow, that was very moving for me, that someone here in Finland actually knew that about my old neighbourhood in London. And despite my reservations, it wasn’t long before I found myself participating with shouts of “look behind you!” and “Oh no it isn’t!”. And the kids were loving it. And we all had a great time. And I made some new friends. All because of Jo.
And then, that time he got the three of us, Lloyd, Gary and me, to train for months in Helsinki, to climb the three peaks of Snowdon, in a day. Him carrying a cricket bat all the way up, and then all the way down again, for charity. Me, the oldest and heaviest, carrying way too much kit, a big stupid video camera, and a thick and heavy paperback copy of Obama’s “Audacity of Hope” which I’d forgotten in my pocket. But Jo? Before we’d even got out of first gear, he was tearing up those mountains to meet his brother at the top like a jack rabbit on crack! Skipping along the treacherous stony ridge at Crib Goch. It was amazing. On the way down, after hours of climbing, he was still full of energy and just bounded off the track to go down to a small tarn below the summit for a drink of water. Madness, that water must have been well spiced with all kinds of sheep crap. I was sure we were going to have to rush him off to the nearest hospital accident and emergency department with an acute attack of amoebic dysentery. But no, it never touched him. That evening he was fine, in much better condition than the rest of us, even with all that beer in the pub at Llanberis.
And so, in conclusion, Jo was something else. And we will miss him. He was a brother. And we will remember him often. Not just when we are marching against the N***s in Helsinki. But those times in the day when we are doing something, and we will remember Jo, something he said, something he did, and we will smile, a little sadly.
Our condolences to Minna and the boys.
We are with you.
MHR.
Helsinki.
December 2024.
